Chapter 4 - Claire Had Hated Mara For The Wrong Reason
Claire left the library.
Nobody followed.
Mara wanted to.
Richard told her not to.
She turned on him.
“You don’t get to decide that anymore.”
He stopped.
Mara found Claire twenty minutes later in the empty music room upstairs.
Not crying.
Sitting on the floor beside a cabinet.
Claire did not look at her.
“How long did you keep calling?”
“About a year.”
“And then?”
“I stopped.”
“Why?”
“Your father said you asked him to make me stop.”
Claire laughed once.
Of course.
“What else did he tell you?”
“That you were having nightmares after my calls.”
“I was having nightmares anyway.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s convenient.”
Mara absorbed it.
“Yes.”
Claire finally looked at her.
“You could have called me when I turned eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“Nineteen.”
“Yes.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Yes.”
“Mara, I’m forty-one.”
“I know.”
“You’re not blaming him for all of that.”
“No.”
Good.
Claire wanted something she could actually be angry at.
Mara gave it to her.
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“The scholarship.”
Claire frowned.
Mara continued.
“Your father paid for school.”
“My mother wanted that.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“After she died, every time I thought about speaking publicly, I heard how it would sound.”
She counted it out.
Poor employee’s daughter takes rich family’s money, then claims famous dead woman’s music.
Claire said nothing.
“So I waited for some version of the story where I wouldn’t look like I was taking advantage.”
“And it never came.”
“No.”
“Why not contact me privately?”
Mara looked toward the piano downstairs she could faintly hear through the floor.
“Because you called me a thief.”
Claire went still.
“When?”
“Your mother’s first memorial.”
She remembered.
She had been eighteen.
Richard had told her Mara was threatening the foundation.
Mara approached after the service.
Claire said:
My mother trusted you and you waited until she died to take something from her.
Mara had walked out.
“I was eighteen.”
“I know.”
“You believed me?”
“No.”
That hurt differently.
“Then why leave?”
Mara thought.
“Because I wanted you to be wrong without having to stand there while you were wrong about me.”
Claire stared.
That answer was less flattering than fear.
More accurate.
Mara had pride too.
After enough years, the silence became self-protecting.
Calling Claire would mean admitting she had allowed Richard’s version to harden because she could not tolerate one more rejection.
Claire asked:
“Why now?”
“Sophie.”
“Don’t use her.”
“I’m not.”
“You literally sent her into my house with the music.”
“No.”
Mara’s answer came sharply.
Then she stopped.
Corrected herself.
“I sent Anna with the music.”
“You knew Sophie was with her.”
“Yes.”
“You gave Sophie the line about Dad remembering.”
Mara’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“What did you think would happen?”
“I thought Anna would hand Richard the page privately. If he asked where it came from, Sophie might be nearby.”
Claire stood.
“You wanted him to hear it from a child.”
Mara did not deny it.
“Why?”
The answer embarrassed her.
“Because Richard can make an adult look greedy in thirty seconds.”
“And a seven-year-old?”
“He couldn’t.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
“So you used the one person in the room he couldn’t discredit.”
Mara’s eyes filled.
“I shouldn’t have.”
“No.”
“I didn’t tell Sophie to play.”
“You taught her what to say.”
“Yes.”
Claire turned away.
For the first time, Mara’s grievance no longer placed her cleanly opposite Richard.
She had done a smaller version of what he had done for years.
Used another person’s innocence to control how a message would be received.
Mara said:
“I’m sorry.”
Claire said nothing.
“I mean it.”
“Tell Sophie.”
“I will.”
Downstairs, a single piano note sounded.
Then another.
Both women froze.
They returned to the ballroom.
Sophie was sitting on the closed piano bench now.
Not playing.
Richard sat several feet away.
Anna was beside Sophie.
A plate of cake sat between them.
Sophie looked at her mother.
“Are you mad?”
Mara crouched.
“At you? No.”
“I took the page.”
“Yes.”
“I knew Aunt Anna said not to.”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked down.
“I wanted to play.”
“I know.”
“And he was mean.”
Richard did not defend himself.
Mara said:
“He was.”
Sophie looked at Claire.
Then Richard.
Then Mara.
“Can somebody tell me whose ending it is?”
That question silenced all four adults.
Richard said:
“Your mother’s.”
Mara immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Sophie frowned.
“Mrs. Vale’s?”
Mara shook her head again.
“Not exactly.”
Sophie looked annoyed.
Adults had spent twenty years making the answer complicated.
She was seven.
She wanted the sentence.
Mara sat beside her.
“Beatrice wrote the piece.”
Richard watched.
“I helped her find the last part.”
“How much?”
“Twelve bars.”
“And then?”
“She changed two of them.”
Sophie thought.
“So you both did it.”
“Yes.”
The answer was embarrassingly simple.
Claire looked at Richard.
For two decades, everybody had been fighting over which single name could own a collaboration.
Sophie had needed twenty seconds to ask the question correctly.
Then Helen appeared from the ballroom entrance.
She was holding a large archival envelope.
“I think you all need to see this before anybody says another word.”
Richard looked at her.
“What is it?”
Helen opened it.
A proof copy of the original score.
Never published.
The title page read:
BEATRICE VALE
Below it, in smaller type:
Coda developed with Mara Ellison.
Claire looked at her father.
At the bottom of the page were two handwritten approval marks.
Beatrice’s.
And Richard’s.
May you like
Richard had not merely heard his wife request the correction.
He had once approved it.
